Hope

Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.  1 Peter 1: 3-5

Spring is here and with spring comes hope and the promise of new life.  With spring comes Easter as well, and Easter also promises hope and new life as well.  

HOPE through the Resurrection of Christ
What do we mean when we use the word Hope?  Sometimes we mean something that we would like to have happen, something good, or something that we desire, and it might happen, it might not, but we hope that it does.  But there’s a much grander hope to talk about isn’t there?  The BIG HOPE you might say.  HOPE in something bigger than ourselves; Hope in something with value; Hope in something with meaning; Hope that gives meaning to our life.  

The sacrifice of God who sent His son to die for our sins brings this hope.  In the scripture above Peter calls it Living Hope; Living Hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Why Did Jesus Have to Die in the First Place?
In His great mercy, God has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. In order to understand just what this living hope is and why it comes through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, we need to understand why Jesus had to die in the first place.  We celebrate Easter every year. We come together in our church and proclaim – He is risen, Jesus Christ has risen and he is alive! And it is true and it is wonderful. But in order to be resurrected, first he had to die. 

Why did he have to die? Was he just showing off – proving that he could do it, lay down his life and then pick it up again? 

1.    NO - That’s not it at all. It does prove something; it proves that He was who He said He was, the Messiah, the Son of God, a member of the Trinity, God in the flesh!

2.     But the reason Jesus had to die was to solve a problem; a problem that started in the beginning when God created man.

When God created Adam and Eve, he created us; he created man to love Him and to have this incredible intimate relationship with Him, our creator, with God. That’s what you were made for.

But sin entered the picture when Adam and Eve ate from the tree. And our sin destroyed that relationship. It separated man from God.  God is perfect and Holy. He cannot just wink at sin and tolerate it. Part of His perfection as God is His perfect justice and God’s justice requires that sin must be paid for. It cannot be allowed to exist un-paid for in the presence of God.  There is the problem.  Because just one of my sins creates a debt that I can’t pay. I have nothing to offer God sufficient to cover the price of just one of my sins. One little lie, one word spoken in anger, one minute worrying about my basic needs, failing to trust in God’s provision. One little sin I can’t cover, and I sin a thousand times a day.  

Jesus dying on the cross provided payment for my debt, and yours too.  That is why He had to die, to pay our debt so that we could be forgiven and through His resurrection – we can have hope of eternal life.  His payment for sin satisfies the Justice of our Holy God in full. The sacrifice of Jesus is enough to cover every sin ever committed by every person who ever lived throughout history and every person who ever will live. All sins past present and future, paid in full!

Scripture to Claim:
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit… I Peter 3:18